Ninjaxenomorph's page

How do you determine what crit tables to use for weapons and effects that deal multiple types of damage, like most natural weapons and morningstars and the like?

Yes, the Padishah of Kelesh, well-known for producing... fair-skinned blondes?

Chalk me up as being in favor of the alignment restrictions. It may be a bit heavy-handed in its approach, but outside of a long writeup, this gives players AND GMs a good idea of a deity's ethos as a shorthand. And it's simple enough to provide a good template for other settings.

I view it like how people still use polluting cars or throw away recyclables; it's a small enough impact they don't really care. Also, it's a small chance the Material Plane is affected at all, and if by 'chunks' it can also pull in empty space, there is an extremely low percentage that what mortals care about on the Material Plane gets affected.

Hmm. I assumed items with charges were like they were in Pathfinder; there's batteries, and there's the item, which has its OWN battery. The batteries you buy are basically a fuel take for charge.

Crystal's explanation:

If we're looking at getting into specifics—and I'm happy to having helped rework this aspect of lashunta biology—the lashunta evolved two distinct types of adolescent developments as a response to the severe swings in environmental pressures of their homeworld. Depending on the pressures they faced at puberty, they would either mature as hardy, combative korasha, or they would mature as adaptable, observant damaya. When their culture later developed a tradition of strong gender roles, the kinds of pressures that triggered development as a korasha fell almost entirely on males, while the pressures that trigger damaya development fell almost wholly on women.

As lashunta have move towards leaving their sexism in the past and opening social roles, education, and careers up to everyone regardless of gender, the distribution has become much more even, and many city-states even allow a child to choose how they will develop (by way of meditation and/or medication) rather than just relying on ambient environmental pressures. There are still a few conservative city-states where the gender divide exists and the subspecies are still largely divived by gender, but these are increasingly rare.

I rather liked the retcon once I saw the in-universe explanation. But yeah, I wasn't as happy with the stat change, especially since Charisma is much less of a key skill (it went from 'awesome for a bunch of classes' to 'need a bit if you're an envoy or solarion, and any you can spare if you want to be Captain')

A clumsy fly speed isn't exactly going to get a first-level character many places, at least not out of combat. Most characters will have at most a +0 modifier, and that's assuming 18 Dex and no ACP. Any damage and the character has a good chance of plummeting.

Kamakiri are meant to be a somewhat powerful race, but they are balanced out by what I call their wookie vocals. In fact, the version I saw was supposed to have Kamakiri and Common as starting languages. It may seem like an opportunity to minmax to some, but literally being unable to speak any language but your own is a very real disadvantage to players. It also means no language-dependant spells unless you can cast Tongues.

(One of the aforementioned friends)

With the exception of the arms, those features you mentioned are already possessed by other races in the setting. And its not four arms; the two claws can't be used to wield anything.

Mark Moreland wrote:

David knott 242 wrote:

1) A Lashunta is born male or female and then chooses to become Damaya or Korasha later on. In the distant past, males were expected to become Korasha and females were expected to become Damaya and rarely made the opposite choice, but nowadays all four combinations are relatively common. This option leaves open the possibility of families that are all Damaya or all Korasha.

It's this option, as far as I understand it (as a non-member of the Starfinder team). There would certainly be a lot of pressure in a Damaya family for all the kids to be Damaya, just like a family of doctors might pressure their kids to also be doctors. But ultimately, the kid gets to choose his or her own path when the time comes.

If we're looking at getting into specifics—and I'm happy to having helped rework this aspect of lashunta biology—the lashunta evolved two distinct types of adolescent developments as a response to the severe swings in environmental pressures of their homeworld. Depending on the pressures they faced at puberty, they would either mature as hardy, combative korasha, or they would mature as adaptable, observant damaya. When their culture later developed a tradition of strong gender roles, the kinds of pressures that triggered development as a korasha fell almost entirely on males, while the pressures that trigger damaya development fell almost wholly on women.

As lashunta have move towards leaving their sexism in the past and opening social roles, education, and careers up to everyone regardless of gender, the distribution has become much more even, and many city-states even allow a child to choose how they will develop (by way of meditation and/or medication) rather than just relying on ambient environmental pressures. There are still a few conservative city-states where the gender divide exists and the subspecies are still largely divived by gender, but these are increasingly rare.

See, that's an awesome explanation; expands on what came before, not throwing it away. Now I just wish the article had led off with that.

Doesn't that last one suggestion seem like exactly what starfinder did though? I mean it's conceivable that there was a gender revolution in which lashunta did chose not to fit a different societal role and their biology changed to reflect that. But starfinder lashunta may not even remember that.

Well, it doesn't say that, so I still find it a pointless (and therefore irritating) retcon.

Ninjaxenomorph wrote:

Benjamin Medrano wrote:

*ponders* I'm buying Starfinder. However, turning elves into the snooty jerks that everyone seems to love portraying them as... well, I think that's it for the setting for me. I'll make something of my own.

Thank you for making a science fantasy RPG, though.

From what I understand its less 'snooty' and more 'bitter this actually affects them personally'.

I'm not a fan of the Lashunta change, however. I'm not saying these new Lashunta aren't interesting as a playable race, but it just seems like a pointless retcon. I feel it could have been handled better than 'Cosmic retcon!'

Idk. how would you've retconned it?

If I had to, I would have made it clear that, especially in Lashunta society, sex=/=gender. Either that, or have it so there are the new subspecies, but they are/were hardwired to the sexes. Hell, maybe they went through a gender revolution after the Gap, and the classification is different.

*ponders* I'm buying Starfinder. However, turning elves into the snooty jerks that everyone seems to love portraying them as... well, I think that's it for the setting for me. I'll make something of my own.

Thank you for making a science fantasy RPG, though.

From what I understand its less 'snooty' and more 'bitter this actually affects them personally'.

I'm not a fan of the Lashunta change, however. I'm not saying these new Lashunta aren't interesting as a playable race, but it just seems like a pointless retcon. I feel it could have been handled better than 'Cosmic retcon!'

Well, they get it as a class skill, plus free ranks, plus the unlock. Granted, it's only for those tertiary skills (all of which except Heal are considered background skills), but it still has interesting implications.

I have been going through some of the races in an unpublished campaign setting, in an attempt to make them less... ARG-extruded. One of them, one that I was actually quite happy with, was the domestic gnoll, a smaller relative of the 'feral' gnoll (they are visually styled after African wild dogs) that, to escape persecution by their larger kin, fled en masse to the cities of the world. They 'domesticated' themselves, and take pride in their position as the best service available in urban areas.

In my latest run, I've been thinking of replacing two of their features, Lucky (same as the halfling ability, but if I keep it I was going to rename it Guarded) and Domesticated (renamed version of gnomes' Obsessive), and giving them a new form of Domesticated: the domestic gnoll chooses one of the following skills: Appraise, Craft, Heal, Handle Animal, Linguistics, Perform, or Profession. It becomes a class skill if it isn't already, and the domestic gnoll is treated as having skill ranks equal to their class level (so it's like Skilled for humans, but it's locked into one tertiary skill). Additionally, once they reach level 5 (and thus 5 ranks), they gain the skill's Skill Unlock.

The skill list was chosen for skills that would be the most... domestic. There is a similar race in the setting, the arctien, that was previously similar to the domestic gnoll (Dex/Wis, small), but much better. Automatically got Weapon Finesse, stealthy, initiative bonus. Since we started trying to differentiate these two more, I decided making the domestic gnoll to be a better at skills would be the best thing I could do.

Is it a bad idea for a racial feature to grant a skill unlock, even if it for a relatively harmless skill? Additionally, I had a feat in mind that was domestic gnoll-exclusive to expand on this, Domestic Dilettante. Basically, it allows a domestic gnoll that takes it to select another skill to have the same mechanics as Domesticsted (free ranks plus unlocks), plus the ability to retrain your skill ranks in the chosen skill for free. The big thing was that I was going to let it be taken for any skill, as the domestic gnoll's better version of Signature Skill. Any thoughts?

Left a review! I look forward to more Akashic content.

I'd like Daevic passions that seem a little less guided towards certain builds. You don't have to build to your passion's specialty, but it feels like a big waste if you don't.

Top 10-
1- Magus. I like me the arcane knight character, what can I say? Screw the haters. Not our fault that the alternative is an eldritch knight.
2- Alchemist. So many different ways to play; bomber, melee beast, all with different ways to approach them.
3- Witch. I love the spell list and the hexes.
4- Slayer. AKA the reason I don't like the Ranger. I don't care about the wilderness or favored enemy aspect; slayer is my focused murder-class of choice.
5- Shaman. I like any class that can get a full divine list without worshipping nature or a deity, hexes make them better.
6- Bloodrager. I just love the theme behind the class; a sorcerer that didn't want to be a squishy.
7- Mesmerist. I love my anti-bard. Fun spell list and, especially useful, can tank will saves with a glance.
8- Occultist. Don't know why everyone thinks the class is complicated; easier to understand than a kineticist.
9- Pyschic. Possibly because it seems 'forbidden fruit'-like.
10- Fighter. For all it's maligned lack of ability, with archetypes one can be pretty damn fun. Even vanilla fighter has weapon and armor training now.

Bottom 10-
1- Summoner, though Unchained helps. It's just been permanently tainted by all the one-shotted bosses I've sat through.
2- Unchained Barbarian. I can appreciate wanting to make rage easier, but it's a straight downgrade; feels like a slap in the face to anyone that actually built a barbarian and figured the math out for themselves.
3- Ranger. I hate pretty much everything this class does, with the exception of style feats. The only thing I like about the ranger is that it contributed to the Slayer.
4- Kineticist. What could have been such a cool, simple idea was marred by overcomplicated mechanics.
5- Medium. The versatility is nice in concept, but in play I've found it's lacking.
6- Investigator. Don't know why, but it never really appealed to me, no matter how many nice things they can get.
7- Cleric. Probably unfairly maligned by me, but I hate how this is the only option if you want to play an actual healer in a core game.
8- Druid. I think it gets too much credit, I'm not a fan of the whole 'nature class' thing. Still, I can at least respect them for their spells.
9- Skald. Personal bias here, but I play a lot of classes that would never want to benefit from raging song, because spells or the like. Otherwise a fine class.
10- Gunslinger/Rogue/Ninja/Samurai. All these classes are lumped together not because I don't like them (I like all of them), it's just players that really shouldn't be playing a complicated class get attracted to them.

I like two full sets of 4d6 drop lowest. Enough randomness to sate my thirst, enough fallbacks to ensure you're not disappointed.

It's pretty harmless, as far as corruptions go. Otherwise it looks pretty good; only nitpick I have is that the Break SLA should be specified as nonmagical. Since nanites.

In my opinion, things are a little more balanced in favor of casters, but casters do have a lot more ways to winnow away their sanity. Spells (yes most of them are optional, but if I was running a game I'd find ways to make those spells very attractive), summoning stuff, etc. I just found out that our undead-blooded sorceress is going to be a bleeding sanity wound for our party... And hey, it makes Path of War characters more attractive (since generally having less than 14 in your initiating stat is counterintuitive), so it can't be all bad.

My only beef is that some creatures don't fit into the rules on sanity attacks. Gibbering mouther or aboleth? Yeah, sanity attack. Flumph or reefclaw (the latter of which is a popular dish)? Not seeing it. At least it's up to GM discretion; there's a setting I work on which has an aberration player race. They already have a bit of a self-esteem problem without their very appearance causing sanity attacks.

On the entire shop?

I liked it, even if it felt pretty condescending at times to people that actually like being related to a dragon. I'm all for different ways for bloodlines to come about, and indeed the ways mentioned in the post are very interesting, but no need to belittle people that like that stuff.

Hmm. That genealogist must be packing some serious levels or a wicked life insurance policy pissing off draconic sorcerers.

When jokes that I don't find amusing are made when I'm honestly reaching out for advice, I can get kind of peeved. And 'betray' wasn't exactly the word used, but a verb involving fecal matter isn't allowed on this forum. If I didn't make it clear, there are some strong feelings on this.

Thing is we are not playing on Golarion (or its solar system...) but have a shared setting. While this may seem to be an insignificant detail to differ between three people, whether or not an entire race effectively exists could be a problem.

The fact that, as you said, there is nothing that directly contradicts them is what worries me. Maybe I can find a recording of devs doing combat where they do it normally...

Eh, not really. The point is android souls are 100% real, just as much as any mortal humanoid.

Souls form in the Positive Energy Plane, tended to by Jyoti and Manasaputras, and are then deposited through... portals, or something. Pharasma is big on the soul's journey, though, at least from life to death.

While it's nice to be agreed with, unless I get a massive amount of people agreeing with me, I'd just be parroting my arguments from other sessions. Anyone have any specific rules proof or a link to a dev post? Because, as far as I can find, I can't find anything to refute their interpretation other than 'it doesn't say'.

I joined a group playing RotRL Anniversary Edition, and they sprung a couple rules I can't really find basis for anywhere. The biggest of which is that moving through allies in combat is considered difficult terrain. I've been playing Pathfinder for at least five years (PFS, mostly) and have NEVER seen this done before. The only basis I can think of is them misinterpreting rules for crowds...

The second one is that a diagonal counts as moving through all four squares (the one you are moving to, and the ones next to it). Never seen this rule, either, but the situation comes up less.

Is there any support for these? Or, even better, is there support that these interpretations of the rules are wrong? I would very much like to never have to worry about this again, it's a very frustrating thing to deal with in combat.

It occurs to me that if android souls are real and not artificial, would they qualify as cyborgs instead of androids. I'm reminded of the Major from Ghost in the Shell.

Well, they are specifically android souls. It wasn't put into them (except by presumably Pharasma), it just manifested.

Then again, it might have been a cosmic screwup on behalf of whoever is in charge of shepherding souls from the Postive Energy Plane.

"It looked like a humanoid, so I put a humanoid soul in it!"

"Well now we have to do it for ALL OF THEM!"

Hmm. I'm not sure. The spell itself doesn't really say.

I literally just watched that; I agree. I'll pass that recommendation along.

Oh, and Saethori, android souls aren't artificial. At all. They are just as real as any other mortal being's soul, enough to be reincarnated, even.

I think it may have started like that, but it's not as if the implications are unexplored. It means that they are truly alive, in every sense of the word in Pathfinder fluff.

Well, the fact that androids are 'robots' - in the classic sense. They are far closer to the original robots in R.U.R., being essentially artificial humanoids. Beyond pulling the 'oh, well I guess goblins or orcs don't have souls either' fallacy, I can't really think of one.

Can we keep the jokes out of this? I came for feedback on trying to solve a problem, and honestly only one response here is useful in any way.

In one of my gaming groups (more Pathfinder-focused, the three of us developing a setting together), I seem to be alone in that I don't hate the implementation of androids. One constantly yearns for a more mechanical robot race and isn't a fan of their soul-having status, while the other despises that they have souls. He says it betrays decades of science fiction (to which I say Pathfinder isn't science fiction, but I digress), and has expressly forbid them from any of his games. Note that none of us are sticks-in-the-mud about technology and Pathfinder, we LOVE it, but they just plum hate androids.

I LIKE their almost-organic, soul-possessing implementation. Souls and how they work are admittedly something I am a fan of in Pathfinder, so it's not really a surprise (I also like the Shabti, a race I consider an almost magical equivalent). Is there anything people would suggest to sway their opinions?

Where would such a thread be located? And, if Moroi accidentally kill someone by feeding, they can create spawn, instead of new vamps. And it can be the same with the LotN vamps, if you use simplified feeding. Which I do, because I have an extreme distaste for the default rule.

Ninjaxenomorph wrote:

What would a dev's opinion be on mixing the given vampire template and the traditional vampire template, with that representing 'pure' Moroi bloodlines? I've been made a fan of this book, but I've been a fan of how Paizo outlined vampires in Blood of the Night.

I wouldn't necessarily suggest it. The thing with the template in Lords of the Night is that its design wasn't because the base vampire was necessarily a bad vampire, but rather that its abilities and limitations were and are extremely problematic to use in the context of a group of player characters in a campaign. The changes to those advantages and limitations necessitated worlbuilding differences, differences which the existence of the base vampire template would make...difficult. Especially considering that the Moroi breed like rats.

I was going to use it in a setting I work on with others for a Vampire-ruled kingdom, which vampires of all varieties have flocked to. Moroi are the 'ruling class,' due to their numbers and spawn, and the vampire template in LotN are the enforcers and footsoldiers. A diluted bloodline they can create when making spawn.

I'll second that. Looking it over, it seems to me to be a mini-cleric with a few abilities from other classes. I don't get what the Blessed and Cursed +1/-1 means in the class advancement table, I can't find any reference to something like that.

Don't forget Gloves of Elvenkind for a concentration-boosting item. You also get a ton of psychic spells of your choice; yes, its a little bit of a step down the rung, but by no means is it unplayable. And, to be fair, the only thing stopping you from using armor is proficiency.

What would a dev's opinion be on mixing the given vampire template and the traditional vampire template, with that representing 'pure' Moroi bloodlines? I've been made a fan of this book, but I've been a fan of how Paizo outlined vampires in Blood of the Night.

There is a shield style, three feats that essentially grant you the good parts of a Tower Shield Fighter (nullifies the penalty, add shield to touch AC), with some other goodies (by the end you can set up the shield as an immediate action, and also provide total cover to an adjacent ally). It's called Mobile Bulwark style. It requires Shield Focus to get, though; you wouldn't be able to pick up the first feat until 3rd level if you're a human.

Picked this up because I wanted some expanded airship rules, was definitely not disappointed!

So, I'm a fan of the fantasy archetype of the armored mage, complete with sword and shield. Naturally I'm a fan of the magus, but I find the Skirnir archetype... lacking. I was mulling over options from the Armor Master's Handbook, and was looking at Shielded Mage; not incredibly useful for magus, not as much as Unhindering Shield, but a lot more fun in my opinion. If I want to play a shielded magus, I want an actual shield, not a metal dinner plate strapped to my forearm. I know the benefits are virtually the same, but still...

I was thinking, though, when looking at shields. A quickdraw shield, combined with the Quick Draw feat, can be donned or put away as a free action. Now, could a magus (or any other mage), when casting a spell, simply put the shield away before casting and put it on after casting? Well, that's not the question, of course it's possible to do that, but would they get the shield bonus back? If we follow the buckler's example, no... But bucklers remain on your arm as you're doing something else; from a more meta perspective, they use language specific to bucklers, and I don't see rules consituting what using a hand for limits you to in combat. Now I could go either way on this, but whichever way seems to have sway, it could still be useful to use this tactic, since you could pick up Shielded Mage to be be able to cast spells with a shield anyway, provided you don't need a free hand for something like Spell Combat or one of the Dex-to-damage feats.

Urtar Mythstone wrote:

Is it possible for a Magus to use his Spellstrike to deliver a melee attack and spell but also use spell combat at the same time to cast another spell

A helpful tip for understanding the Magus is that Spellstrike is not an action.

It's whenever you could take an attack. AoO, standard action, full attack, whenever. You're just changing how you deliver your touch spell.

Yes. Painful stare is not a secondary effect, or else it would be bundled in with Hypnotic Stare!

If the rock is a creature, yes. But normally rocks are not creatures. So no.

If you target it! Just because something is immune doesn't mean the mesmerist can't stare at it! It won't take the penalty, yes, but it's still the target. It just won't take the (mind-affecting) penalty.

It's a logical flow: Hypnotic Stare is a mind-affecting effect. Painful Stare only works on things that Hypnotic Stare is capable of effecting. Some things are immune to mind-affecting effects, ergo, Painful Stare doesn't work on them, as they aren't valid targets for Hypnotic Stare.

No, it doesn't! It says nowhere that painful stare only works on things that hypnotic stare is capable of affecting! Nowhere!

Hypnotic Stare (Su): A mesmerist can focus his stare on one creature within 30 feet as a swift action. That creature takes a –2 penalty on Will saving throws. This penalty changes to –3 at 8th level. A mesmerist can maintain his stare against only one opponent at a time; it remains in effect until the mesmerist stares at a new target, the opponent dies, the opponent moves farther than 30 feet away, or the mesmerist falls unconscious or dies. The mesmerist can remove the memory of his stare from the target's mind; the creature doesn't remember that it was affected (nor does it realize that it is currently being affected) unless the mesmerist allows it. The hypnotic stare is a psychic effect, and relies more on the mesmerist's focus than the target's perception of his stare. It can't be avoided in the same ways a gaze attack can. The mesmerist can use this ability even while blinded, but must succeed at a DC 20 concentration check to do so. Staring at a creature requires the mesmerist's focus, so if he uses a gaze attack or similar ability, he must target the subject of his hypnotic stare or voluntarily end the stare. The penalties from multiple mesmerists' stares don't stack, nor do they stack with penalties from witches' evil eye hexes. This is a mind-affecting effect.

Thing is, I don't see in there any language that says things about whether targets are valid or not.